The Hardcore Truth is the title of Bob Holly's new book and the truth it most certainly does tell no matter how uncomfortable the situation may be for Bob to talk about. There is no pulling of punches. It is honest and accurate and frankly the best wrestling book since Mick Foley's first one.

We were blessed to have Hardcore Bob Holly spend nearly an hour with us the other day in this exclusive interview. It was a fun, telling interview with a hard nosed guy that sometimes people don't know how to take.Truthfully, he could not be more our style!

Check out the interview and don't forget to get Bob's book available now at bookstores everywhere and onAmazon.com!

You can listen in MP3 Format, on a YouTube video, and read the full transcript at www.WrestlingEpicenter.com. While there, you can check out our 400+ other interviews in MP3 format and, if you would be so kind, check out our store and buy something. Rare wrestling and more can be yours at great prices. Check it out!

HARDCORE HOLLY:

- We welcome Hardcore Holly onto the show to plug his book "The Hardcore Truth", a brutally honest look at his life, his career in professional wrestling, and his opinions on the events that took place during his career. He gives credit to his friend Ross Williams for ghost writing the book and giving it the proper presentation to make the stories come across as well as they possibly could.

- Holly says that Ross wants to be a writer for WWE & TNA and says that he has mapped out storylines to him in conversations and that all of his ideas sound really creative and would make for good television.

- He originally got inspired to write the book when his wife insisted on it and he contacted ECW Press who advised him to get a ghost writer. That was when he came into contact with Ross Williams who sent in a sample to the publishers and they loved it. In total, it took about 18 months to write the entire book.

- When asked about his reputation as a tough guy with a mean personality, Holly comments that he isn't really like that at all. He says that his character on TV came across that way and he insists that Hardcore Holly was just a persona he played. If he was ever physical in the ring, he said that he never dished out anything he wasn't prepared to take himself. Another motivation for writing the book was to show that he is a nice guy and loves to have fun.

- His opinions in the book are his own. He wants to make it known that he doesn't have an ax to grind and was only interested in telling the truth and giving his opinions, good and bad. Holly want to go into extreme detail to give people a look at what really goes on backstage in wrestling. He wanted to state the good and bad about those he came across. One such example is Shawn Michaels, who he couldn't stand during the mid 90s, but always respected as an athlete and goes far to admit that nowadays, he is a completely different person.

- In regards to the shift from the New Generation Era to the Attitude Era, Holly says the biggest change he noticed was that the boys were given more freedom to handle their characters. For example, he says that he was never comfortable with the Sparkplug Holly racecar driver character because it was too happy and he didn't feel it was realistic. He was given more say with the direction of Hardcore Holly because he felt it was easier to portray something more aggressive and rugged.

- Holly says that the PG direction of WWE is the reasoning behind so many of today's babyfaces going back to being happy good guys that smile all the time. He specifically points out Kane as having suffered from this as it is hard for him to see Kane as a threatening monster when he's taking part in comedy segments all the time.

- Holly got to know Macho Man Randy Savage when he first got to the WWF and says that Savage took him under his wing. He says that both him & Rick Martel helped by giving him advice. He always went to them with questions and tried to learn as much as he could.

- When going into the now infamous Matt Cappotelli incident, he says that Matt talking it the way he did (complaining & wanting to quit) and Holly says that he was merely testing his toughness. This was normal practice in the business and says Holly was treated the same way at various stages of his career. He says that he likes Matt, but was shocked by his reaction to the incident. Holly also mentions that he went to go film the show and go in the ring with Matt the day before his neck surgery.

- In regards to how people reacted to the incident, he doesn't really care what is said about him and figures that at least people are talking about him. He also says that he does like Matt and feels bad for him, but ultimately says that he probably wasn't cut out for wrestling.

- Taking the conversation even further, Holly says that he feels today's modern wrestlers are often pampered and the old guard of tough guys are being phased out. He mentions guys like Bradshaw, Ron Simmons, and Haku/Meng that were very tough, took their shots, and had no problem dishing them out. Other comparisons to today's wrestling, he says that back in his day, he never had trainers and guys often worked hurt. He says it is good that guys are taken care of nowadays, but it also contributes to them being catered to.

- MMA has become huge in recent years and Hardcore Holly says that if he had the chance to do it over again, he'd love to do MMA. He follows it closely and is a fan of it. He loves the idea of getting into fights and seeing who the tougher man is and he younger when it first got hot, he would have trained to do it. In addition to fighting that goes along with MMA, he loves the idea of anybody being able to win a fight.

- That leads into a discussion about the Brawl for All tournament which Bob was a part of. He enjoyed being a part of even though most guys were against the idea. He says that the guys that were a part of it liked getting the pay for it. He also tells the story of how the concept was done to put over Dr. Death Steve Williams who was being set up to face Steve Austin. They thought he would walk his way through the tournament, shoot or otherwise. He says that Bart Gunn got cheers backstage for knocking out Dr. Death because Jim Ross had pushed strong for him & was making some of the boys mad. He says that the Bart Gunn/Butterbean Wrestlemania match was a set up to make Bart look bad.

- When talking about the Chris Benoit murder-suicide story and how it was covered by the media, he says that the news coverage on the incident was frustrating, but he tried to not let it bother him. He feels that they were going to try to write & present the story to make it sound the best, whether it was all true or not.

- Holly did not reach out the WWE for his book because he wanted to make sure that he had full control over everything that was put into it. He knew if WWE had any part in it, they would dictate the book's content. When he finally left the WWE, he did feel relief in having control over his life and wanted to keep that in this book.

- He recently made an appearance for TNA as part of one of their "One Night Only" PPV events (this one titled Hardcore Justice 2). He says that he had a blast there and was impressed with how relaxed the atmosphere was. The guys were very polite and they had fun planning out the show. He had no idea what to expect, but he liked the overall experience and he would be open to going back.

- In a final plug for the book, Holly hopes that once people read the book, they will come away weith it knowing what he is really like and hopefully change the overall reputation that he has with some people. He also wanted to make sure people understood the inner workings of wrestling and what goes on in the kind of decision making that goes into the on screen product.

- As a final goodbye, Hardcore Holly graciously leaves us by thanking us for having him on and expressing his grattitude for being a part o